The Weavers Part 19

"He awaits the signal. The hawk flies not swifter than Diaz will act."

"The people--the bazaars--the markets?"

"As the air stirs a moment before the hurricane comes, so the whisper has stirred them. From one lip to another, from one street to another, from one quarter to another, the word has been pa.s.sed--'Nahoum was a Christian, but Nahoum was an Egyptian whose heart was Muslim. The stranger is a Christian and an Inglesi. Reason has fled from the Prince Pasha, the Inglesi has bewitched him. But the hour of deliverance draweth nigh. Be ready! To-night!' So has the whisper gone."

Harrik's eyes burned. "G.o.d is great," he said. "The time has come. The Christians spoil us. From France, from England, from Austria--it is enough. Kaid has handed us over to the Greek usurers, the Inglesi and the Frank are everywhere. And now this new-comer who would rule Kaid, and lay his hand upon Egypt like Joseph of old, and bring back Nahoum, to the shame of every Muslim--behold, the spark is to the tinder, it shall burn."

"And the hour, Effendina?"

"At midnight. The guns to be trained on the Citadel, the Palace surrounded. Kaid's Nubians?"

"A hundred will be there, Effendina, the rest a mile away at their barracks." Achmet rubbed his cold palms together in satisfaction.

"And Prince Kaid, Effendina?" asked Higli cautiously.

The fanatical eyes turned away. "The question is foolish--have ye no brains?" he said impatiently.

A look of malignant triumph flashed from Achmet to High, and he said, scarce above a whisper: "May thy footsteps be as the wings of the eagle, Effendina. The heart of the pomegranate is not redder than our hearts are red for thee. Cut deep into our hearts, and thou shalt find the last beat is for thee--and for the Jehad!"

"The Jehad--ay, the Jehad! The time is at hand," answered Harrik, glowering at the two. "The sword shall not be sheathed till we have redeemed Egypt. Go your ways, effendis, and peace be on you and on all the righteous worshippers of G.o.d!"

As High and Achmet left the palace, the voice of a holy man--admitted everywhere and treated with reverence--chanting the Koran, came somnolently through the court-yard: "Bismillah hirrahmah, nirraheem.

Elhamdu lillahi sabbila!"

Rocking his body backwards and forwards and dwelling sonorously on each vowel, the holy man seemed the incarnation of Muslim piety; but as the two conspirators pa.s.sed him with scarce a glance, and made their way to a small gate leading into the great garden bordering on the Nile, his eyes watched them sharply. When they had pa.s.sed through, he turned towards the windows of the harem, still chanting. For a long time he chanted. An occasional servant came and went, but his voice ceased not, and he kept his eyes fixed ever on the harem windows.

At last his watching had its reward. Something fluttered from a window to the ground. Still chanting, he rose and began walking round the great court-yard. Twice he went round, still chanting, but the third time he stooped to pick up a little strip of linen which had fallen from the window, and concealed it in his sleeve. Presently he seated himself again, and, still chanting, spread out the linen in his palm and read the characters upon it. For an instant there was a jerkiness to the voice, and then it droned on resonantly again. Now the eyes of the holy man were fixed on the great gates through which strangers entered, and he was seated in the way which any one must take who came to the palace doors.

It was almost dark, when he saw the bowab, after repeated knocking, sleepily and grudgingly open the gates to admit a visitor. There seemed to be a moment's hesitation on the bowab's part, but he was presently a.s.sured by something the visitor showed him, and the latter made his way deliberately to the palace doors. As the visitor neared the holy man, who chanted on monotonously, he was suddenly startled to hear between the long-drawn syllables the quick words in Arabic:

"Beware, Saadat! See, I am Mahommed Ha.s.san, thy servant! At midnight they surround Kaid's palace--Achmet and Higli--and kill the Prince Pasha. Return, Saadat. Harrik will kill thee."

David made no sign, but with a swift word to the faithful Mahommed Ha.s.san, pa.s.sed on, and was presently admitted to the palace. As the doors closed behind him, he would hear the voice of the holy man still chanting: "Waladalleen--Ameen-Ameen! Waladalleen--Ameen!"

The voice followed him, fainter and fainter, as he pa.s.sed through the great bare corridors with the thick carpets on which the footsteps made no sound, until it came, soft and undefined, as it were from a great distance. Then suddenly there fell upon him a sense of the peril of his enterprise. He had been left alone in the vast dim hall while a slave, made obsequious by the sight of the ring of the Prince Pasha, sought his master. As he waited he was conscious that people were moving about behind the great screens of mooshrabieh which separated this room from others, and that eyes were following his every motion. He had gained easy ingress to this place; but egress was a matter of some speculation.

The doors which had closed behind him might swing one way only! He had voluntarily put himself in the power of a man whose fatal secret he knew. He only felt a moment's apprehension, however. He had been moved to come from a whisper in his soul; and he had the sure conviction of the predestinarian that he was not to be the victim of "The Scytheman"

before his appointed time. His mind resumed its composure, and he watchfully waited the return of the slave.

Suddenly he was conscious of some one behind him, though he had heard no one approach. He swung round and was met by the pa.s.sive face of the black slave in personal attendance on Harrik. The slave did not speak, but motioned towards a screen at the end of the room, and moved towards it. David followed. As they reached it, a broad panel opened, and they pa.s.sed through, between a line of black slaves. Then there was a sudden darkness, and a moment later David was ushered into a room blazing with light. Every inch of the walls was hung with red curtains. No door was visible. He was conscious of this as the panel clicked behind him, and the folds of the red velvet caught his shoulder in falling. Now he saw sitting on a divan on the opposite side of the room Prince Harrik.

David had never before seen him, and his imagination had fashioned a different personality. Here was a combination of intellect, refinement, and savagery. The red, sullen lips stamped the delicate, fanatical face with cruelty and barbaric indulgence, while yet there was an intensity in the eyes that showed the man was possessed of an idea which mastered him--a root-thought. David was at once conscious of a complex personality, of a man in whom two natures fought. He understood it.

By instinct the man was a Mahdi, by heredity he was a voluptuary, that strange commingling of the religious and the evil found in so many criminals. In some far corner of his nature David felt something akin.

The rebellion in his own blood against the fine instinct of his Quaker faith and upbringing made him grasp the personality before him. Had he himself been born in these surroundings, under these influences! The thought flashed through his mind like lightning, even as he bowed before Harrik, who salaamed and said: "Peace be unto thee!" and motioned him to a seat on a divan near and facing him.

"What is thy business with me, effendi?" asked Harrik.

"I come on the business of the Prince Pasha," answered David.

Harrik touched his fez mechanically, then his breast and lips, and a cruel smile lurked at the corners of his mouth as he rejoined:

"The feet of them who wear the ring of their Prince wait at no man's door. The carpet is spread for them. They go and they come as the feet of the doe in the desert. Who shall say, They shall not come; who shall say, They shall not return!"

Though the words were spoken with an air of ingenuous welcome, David felt the malignity in the last phrase, and knew that now was come the most fateful moment of his life. In his inner being he heard the dreadful challenge of Fate. If he failed in his purpose with this man, he would never begin his work in Egypt. Of his life he did not think--his life was his purpose, and the one was nothing without the other. No other man would have undertaken so Quixotic an enterprise, none would have exposed himself so recklessly to the dreadful accidents of circ.u.mstance. There had been other ways to overcome this crisis, but he had rejected them for a course fantastic and fatal when looked at in the light of ordinary reason. A struggle between the East and the West was here to be fought out between two wills; between an intellectual libertine steeped in Oriental guilt and cruelty and self-indulgence, and a being selfless, human, and in an agony of remorse for a life lost by his hand.

Involuntarily David's eyes ran round the room before he replied. How many slaves and retainers waited behind those velvet curtains?

Harrik saw the glance and interpreted it correctly. With a look of dark triumph he clapped his hands. As if by magic fifty black slaves appeared, armed with daggers. They folded their arms and waited like statues.

David made no sign of discomposure, but said slowly: "Dost thou think I did not know my danger, Eminence? Do I seem to thee such a fool? I came alone as one would come to the tent of a Bedouin chief whose son one had slain, and ask for food and safety. A thousand men were mine to command, but I came alone. Is thy guest imbecile? Let them go. I have that to say which is for Prince Harrik's ear alone."

An instant's hesitation, and Harrik motioned the slaves away. "What is the private word for my ear?" he asked presently, fingering the stem of the narghileh.

"To do right by Egypt, the land of thy fathers and thy land; to do right by the Prince Pasha, thy brother."

"What is Egypt to thee? Why shouldst thou bring thine insolence here?

Couldst thou not preach in thine own bazaars beyond the sea?"

David showed no resentment. His reply was composed and quiet. "I am come to save Egypt from the work of thy hands."

"Dog of an unbeliever, what hast thou to do with me, or the work of my hands?"

David held up Kaid's ring, which had lain in his hand. "I come from the master of Egypt--master of thee, and of thy life, and of all that is thine."

"What is Kaid's message to me?" Harrik asked, with an effort at unconcern, for David's boldness had in it something chilling to his fierce pa.s.sion and pride.

"The word of the Effendina is to do right by Egypt, to give thyself to justice and to peace."

"Have done with parables. To do right by Egypt wherein, wherefore?" The eyes glinted at David like bits of fiery steel.

"I will interpret to thee, Eminence."

"Interpret." Harrik muttered to himself in rage. His heart was dark, he thirsted for the life of this arrogant Inglesi. Did the fool not see his end? Midnight was at hand! He smiled grimly.

"This is the interpretation, O Prince! Prince Harrik has conspired against his brother the Prince Pasha, has treacherously seduced officers of the army, has planned to seize Cairo, to surround the Palace and take the life of the Prince of Egypt. For months, Prince, thee has done this: and the end of it is that thee shall do right ere it be too late. Thee is a traitor to thy country and thy lawful lord."

Harrik's face turned pale; the stem of the narghileh shook in his fingers. All had been discovered, then! But there was a thing of dark magic here. It was not a half-hour since he had given the word to strike at midnight, to surround the Palace, and to seize the Prince Pasha.

Achmet--Higli, had betrayed him, then! Who other? No one else knew save Zaida, and Zaida was in the harem. Perhaps even now his own palace was surrounded. If it was so, then, come what might, this masterful Inglesi should pay the price. He thought of the den of lions hard by, of the cage of tigers-the menagerie not a thousand feet away. He could hear the distant roaring now, and his eyes glittered. The Christian to the wild beasts! That at least before the end. A Muslim would win heaven by sending a Christian to h.e.l.l.

Achmet--Higli! No others knew. The light of a fateful fanaticism was in his eyes. David read him as an open book, and saw the madness come upon him.

"Neither Higli, nor Achmet, nor any of thy fellow-conspirators has betrayed thee," David said. "G.o.d has other voices to whisper the truth than those who share thy crimes. I have ears, and the air is full of voices."

Harrik stared at him. Was this Inglesi, then, with the grey coat, b.u.t.toned to the chin, and the broad black hat which remained on his head unlike the custom of the English--was he one of those who saw visions and dreamed dreams, even as himself! Had he not heard last night a voice whisper through the dark "Harrik, Harrik, flee to the desert! The lions are loosed upon thee!" Had he not risen with the voice still in his ears and fled to the harem, seeking Zaida, she who had never cringed before him, whose beauty he had conquered, but whose face turned from him when he would lay his lips on hers? And, as he fled, had he not heard, as it were, footsteps lightly following him--or were they going before him?

Finding Zaida, had he not told her of the voice, and had she not said: "In the desert all men are safe--safe from themselves and safe from others; from their own acts and from the acts of others"? Were the lions, then, loosed upon him? Had he been betrayed?

Suddenly the thought flashed into his mind that his challenger would not have thrust himself into danger, given himself to the mouth of the Pit, if violence were intended. There was that inside his robe, than which lightning would not be more quick to slay. Had he not been a hunter of repute? Had he not been in deadly peril with wild beasts, and was he not quicker than they? This man before him was like no other he had ever met. Did voices speak to him? Were there, then, among the Christians such holy men as among the Muslims, who saw things before they happened, and read the human mind? Were there sorcerers among them, as among the Arabs?

In any case his treason was known. What were to be the consequences?